North Korea blared propaganda audio messages across the border
into South Korea on Monday -- the same day Seoul started military exercises
with the United States and other countries.
Hours before,
the North had threatened to "retaliate against the U.S. with tremendous
muscle" if it did not cancel the military exercises.
The exercises,
spearheaded by the U.S. and South Korea, started Monday as planned, with both
nations' militaries describing them as an annual effort to improve readiness
and ensure stability on the Korean Peninsula.
As far as North
Korea's retaliation goes, it appeared to be in the form of propaganda messages against
South Korea, a major U.S. ally in the region.
It blasted the
messages into South Korea using loudspeakers, the South's Defense Ministry
said, in the latest tensions between the two nations.
"It is
believed that North Korea started broadcasting in order to stop South Korea's
broadcasts from reaching North Korean citizens and military in the area,"
a South Korean Defense Ministry official told CNN. "North Korea's
broadcast cannot be heard clearly from the South side."
Tit for tat
Last week, South Korea resumed a
psychological warfare campaign using a similar broadcast method, the first time
it has done so in over a decade.
South Korea said
its campaign was in retaliation for landmine blasts on August 4 that severely
injured two of its soldiers.
North Korea
denies it planted the landmines on a route patrolled by South Korean troops in
the demilitarized zone that separates the two nations.
A week after the
landmine attack, the South restarted its propaganda broadcasts, infuriating
North Korea, which has in the past threatened
to blow up the huge speakers its
neighbor set up at the demilitarized zone.
The U.S.-led
United Nations Command said its investigation found that North Korea planted
the landmines.
Demand for an apology
South Korea had demanded that Pyongyang
apologize for the landmines and punish whoever is responsible for the attacks
against its soldiers.
The
demilitarized zone has divided North and South Korea since the Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice rather
than a formal peace treaty. As a result, the two countries technically remain
at war.
Tensions have
flared in the past around sensitive points on their de facto border, including North Korea's shelling of an island in
2010 that killed two South Korean
marines.
North Korea's threats
In the hours leading up to the military
exercises, North Korea unleashed
a barrage of threats in its usual
colorful language.
"The army
and people of the DPRK are no longer what they used to be in the past when they
had to counter the U.S. nukes with rifles," North Korea's National Defense
Commission said.
It described the
nation as "the invincible power equipped with both (the) latest offensive
and defensive means unknown to the world."
DPRK stands for
the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea, the formal name for North Korea.
The
multinational exercises include forces from Australia, Canada, Colombia,
Denmark, France, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. They will end on August
28.
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